Muscle Into Life

Take a moment, stand in front of a mirror, and look at the physique you’ve built. Go ahead and feel the strength connected with your efforts to date. Yes, and feel the power connected with your efforts, and the self-esteem that naturally accompanies embracing a purpose and taking action to make your goal come true.

Think of how you’ve experienced the process of developing your current advanced physical shape’those hours of sweat, tears and willpower you regularly expended to produce your results. It feels good to know you can apply yourself with that much passion and drive to produce such a tangible result, doesn’t it?

Why confine yourself to applying yourself that way in the gym? The truth is, without knowing it, you’ve been following success principles in the gym and producing exceptional results. And by following those success principles, you’ve likely become big’much bigger than you were when you started training.

The fact that you have sustained energy to become big tells me a very compelling thing about you: You made up your mind to become big, and now you are’and to accomplish that you’ve been applying specific principles.

If you can be big in body, you can also choose to be big in life’your life. You can start now to build the type of life you want with the same kind of tenacity you’ve used to build your body. Yes, my friend, you can choose to expand the resources and qualities you have already mastered for building your body to become big in life as well.

You know you want more of life’s richness, goodness and blessings. Now is the time to apply your bodybuilding skills toward getting what you want.

The Psychology of True Bigness

‘Yeah, Pete, I’m decidedly bigger than when I started, but, I mean, I’m no Mr. Universe. How can you say that at the level I’m at, I’m big enough to apply my bodybuilding skills to being bigger in life?’

Good question. You may not be a 20-inch-armed, 60-inch-chested, 32-inch-thighed competitive behemoth, but I can tell you four things about how you stack up in relation to average people your age:

1) You’re stronger’a lot stronger than they are.

2) You’re likely healthier than they are.

3) You’re better built than they are’decidedly so.

4) You like, respect and have a personal relationship with yourself that they’ll likely never have with themselves. Congratulations! Those are things that can pay you huge dividends when you expand your thinking and approach life issues with the same intensity you invest in your training.

When I said above that you were big, I didn’t mean just amply muscled; it’s much broader than that. Being big means that you’re different in a positive way’you’re creative, you’re expansive and you are extraordinary.

‘Extraordinary? Me?’ I heard you say. Yes, you. And if you don’t think you can be’or are’extraordinary, let me tell you that when novices come into the gym and see what you can do and what you’ve created with your physique, they always think that it’s extraordinary. ‘Man, I wish I could look like that!’ they say.

Believe it and accept it. You can do extraordinary things’you already have. ALL Expand Your Thinking and Your Self-Acceptance

By applying the strategies set forth in this article, you’ll possibly keep yourself from becoming a musclehead who sees life strictly through a gym mentality. You’ll start using your gym-cultivated success-inducing framework to expand your life into never before experienced realms of accomplishment and fulfillment.

What are the components of this framework that you have already developed’indeed, mastered?

‘The capacity for sustained discipline. Being able to consistently subject yourself to processes that are mandatory if you want to produce a specific result’and doing that purposefully and willingly, without compromise.

‘The ability to use ego and pride as a building or expansion force. Letting your sense of self evolve as you physically improve, in a way that moves you to keep pushing, striving and thinking higher.

‘The capacity to be tenacious. Continuing to pursue an objective, regardless of anything else that may be occurring in your life, until you reach it’and never relinquishing your quest until you’ve achieved it.

‘The ability to set, pursue and achieve goals. The capacity to determine an outcome, devise a plan and then work the plan right up to the point where your outcome becomes a materialized fact.

‘The capacity to generate sustained passion and determination. Not just going through the motions but going for it feverishly, driving yourself’especially through every impediment (for example, the pain barrier)’with the invincible resolve that you will get what you’re after.

‘The capacity to dig in and stay in the zone until the job is done. Rep after rep, set after set, day after day and year after year. How many people do you know who can commit that way and actually honor the commitment to the level that you have?

‘The capacity to subject yourself to continually higher stress thresholds, then master and break through them’and then go even higher. No pain, no gain? Hey, no pain, no nothing! You’ve already accepted and are regularly working within the parameter where physical effort is exerted’even when severe stress (positive training pain) is telling you, begging you, to stop. That’s what enables your will to conquer the limits imposed on you. And I can tell you, based on more than 20 years of working with peak performers in sports and business, that this final point is the most important factor in reaching any type of championship level. Without it you’re essentially just another face in the crowd. With it you become the face the crowd looks at in awe.

Think about it. By training as long, purposefully and diligently as you have, you’ve already demonstrated those success-inducing attributes. Most people take years to develop them, if they can at all. Usually they fade out because the demand is more than they can deal with. Well, not you. Wholly Accept and Esteem Yourself’Now!

It’s time to begin the process of applying your instinctive success-inducing attributes to the whole of your life. And what do you think will happen when you do? Yeah, that’s right. You’ll build a powerful, rewarding life, just the way you’ve built a standout body. How do I know you can do it? Here’s a basic success framework through which any ultimate accomplishment must pass.

a) Decide what you want’specifically.

b) Believe you can achieve it.

c) Determine, with positive conviction, that you’ll keep at it until you get it.

d) Devise a specific plan of action.

e) Commit to each of the actions on your plan.

f) Get into the necessary success-commanding mind-set and begin the process’go for it!

g) Persevere until you triumph, continuing to push yourself until you get what you’re after.

h) Turn back to yourself in pride and faith, reinforcing your ability.

i) Then set your sights even higher, and work through steps A through F to reach your next level.

That process is exactly what you do when you approach a weight you’ve never done before or a set-and-rep sequence designed to bring out the full development of a lagging bodypart. How many times, in fact, have you gone through the achievement framework outlined in steps A through F? Indeed, how easy is it for you to turn on the internal juice (F) when you begin your workout? How naturally driven are you to complete your intended number of sets and reps so you produce the improvement you dearly want?

The point here is that being successful is already a well-developed part of your makeup. Let’s see how you can expand that capacity so you can stimulate the same kinds of results in life that you have with your body.

The Muscle Into Life Process

There are seven aspects to this process. I’ll detail each in an easy-to-understand manner. Then, go ahead and perform each exactly as outlined.

Aspect A: Anchoring the emotional fuel that drives you to triumph in life. You already know what this emotional fuel is. It’s the inner power driving you as you begin each set, especially when you strive to complete reps eight through 10. It’s the power-of-triumph motivation you exert when you conquer the iron, fully contracting each fiber to the bone.

Here’s how to anchor this power so you can turn it on at will and use it in your life-building efforts.

Phase 1: Accessing Your Personal Power Realm.

There are three steps here:

1) First, seclude yourself in a quiet, distraction-free environment, one where you’re sure you won’t be disturbed. Take your phone off the hook, loosen any tight or binding clothing you may be wearing and then position yourself on your back, lying either on your bed, the couch or the floor or stretched out in a reclining chair so you feel totally comfortable and at ease.

2) Next, let your eyelids gently close and take three l-o-n-g, d-e-e-p breaths, inhaling easily through your nostrils and slowly exhaling through your mouth.

3) Next, envision yourself slowly descending a staircase of seven total steps. With each step you silently repeat the word ‘d-o-w-n,’ allowing yourself to progressively let loose, thoroughly relaxing mentally and physically with each step.

4) When you’ve easily, comfortably reached the bottom step and are feeling the deep and soothing comfort of inner calmness, shift your awareness so you can perform phase 2.

Phase 2: Inducing a Specific Power Memory.

Lying comfortably with your eyelids closed, deeply relaxed, recall a specific time in your personal life’a time when you embodied dynamic, commanding forcefulness.

That will be easy for you, as you can bring back the memory of the very last time you generated feverish, driving power and forcefulness during a set. Perhaps it was on the seventh rep of incline dumbbell presses when you determined you’d blast your pecs into a mega-contraction. Perhaps it was on the eighth rep of cable rows, when your lats started to say no but your mind said yes. Perhaps it was on the ninth rep of a set of preacher curls when, even though your biceps felt totally worked to the point of exploding, you dug deeper and went on to do reps 10, 11 and 12, maintaining a fury that overrode any attempt by your body to stop you.

You know what that emotion is. So go ahead and recall the very last time you experienced it. Just relax and search your memory, and you’ll identify a time when you exhibited such a driving power. One or more scenarios from your past will pop into your awareness.

When they do, decide which scenario best embodies you when you have displayed this dynamic, commanding forcefulness.

Then do the following: 1) Once you’ve isolated the specific experience from your memory core, make the picture of it in your mind brighter and more distinct.

2) Then, in your imagination, bring it closer to you.

3) And then bring it even more into focus’make it brighter, clearer and even more detailed.

4) Now bring it even closer to you’so close, it’s as if it’s right in front of your face; so close, you can reach out and touch it; so real, it’s as if you’re in the scene.

At this point you should see, hear, smell, feel’totally immersing yourself in all the sensory factors composing the scenario as if it were happening now.

Phase 3.

At this point, instead of just ‘watching’ the scenario, imagine yourself stepping into the picture and stepping into your body in the scene, feeling the ground beneath your feet and seeing what you see as this embodiment of power. Here are the steps:

a) Become aware of every detail in your visual field when you’re embodying this power.

b) Then f-e-e-l exactly what you feel as this powerful being.

c) Then project the specific facial expression that you project when you have this power’from the slant of your eyes to the flare of your nostrils to the curl and purse of your lips.

d) Mentally say to yourself, using the exact words and tone of voice you use, what you say to yourself when, as this embodiment of power, you communicate with yourself.

e) Believe in this personal power’in yourself, your ability and your capacity to produce striking, decisive results.

f) And then, confidently, purposefully b-r-e-a-t-h-e exactly the way you breathe when you are the embodiment of this commanding power. Next, as you’re inwardly going through A through F above and breathing confidently as the embodiment of personal power, clench your right fist hard. Holding it clenched, choose a word that to you represents the mental state you’re experiencing.

For example, you might want to use a word such as force, power, conquest, success or zone. Holding your fist tightly clenched (and continuing to breathe as you were), silently repeat your word five times consecutively, f-e-e-l-i-n-g its impact as you continue to inwardly work through A through F, the sensory factors connected with your personal power scenario.

Hold that fist-clenched A-through-F sensory replication for 20 seconds. Then, very s-l-o-w-l-y, release your clenched right fist and allow yourself to grow relaxed and at ease. You’ve now established a personal power energy anchor, in which the acts of clenching your right fist, breathing as the embodiment of commanding personal power and mentally projecting your key word will spontaneously trigger the specific energy and feelings connected to that power state to activate and surge through you.

The entire process outlined here should take 11 to 14 minutes total to perform. I suggest you perform it once per day for four to six consecutive days. That will ensure you establish a connection between clenching your right fist, breathing as a commanding power and mentally repeating your key word and activating the specific feeling of power to surge through you.

Each time you perform the process, it will become easier to do and bring more decisive results.

Anchoring Use Note

Once you’ve established the stimulus/response link between the above process and summoning up energy of personal power, you don’t have to go through the entire process. Performing it as outlined four to six times on consecutive days will ensure you develop the activation trigger mechanism required to produce maximum results. And once you’ve established the activation anchor, you can go right into aspect B of the Muscle Into Life process and use this power anchor as outlined in aspect D.

Aspect B: Decide what you really want in your life. What’s the ‘more’ in life you truly want to experience and/or possess? You must first decide and then write it down.

‘Do you want a better paying job or a promotion in the position you currently occupy?
‘Do you want to enhance or strengthen your skill in a certain area?
‘Do you want to connect formally with that special someone who’s caught your eye?
‘Do you want to increase your personal income?
‘Do you want to start’and succeed in’a business of your own?
‘Do you want to take an aspect of your training and turn it into a business that supports you (i.e., become a corporate fitness trainer, nutritional consultant or motivational speaker; develop and market a new product; own your own gym, etc.)?

‘Do you want to acquire more possessions?

‘Do you want to distinguish yourself in a manner that makes your mark in life?

Decide what you truly want’one specific thing at a time’and write it down boldly. It can be anything you really know you want and are constantly thinking about.

Aspect C: Devise your action plan. Now that you’ve decided on your outcome, to the best of your ability list the specific steps you’ll need to take and sustain to either produce or acquire it. Consider and address factors such as these:

‘What’s involved?
‘Who’s involved?
‘What costs are involved?
‘What research might be involved?
‘What alliances will you need to form?
‘What will be your first, second, third, fourth, fifth and so on actions taken to produce that outcome?
‘What’s a realistic time frame for you to plan for each action and for producing your overall desired result?
Write down every possible factor involved in accomplishing your desired outcome.

Aspect D: Turn on the power and go for it! Now you start the committed-doing part, beginning with the first action step in your plan.

First, however, get into your power state (fire your personal power anchor: clench your right fist hard, breathe your personal power breaths and mentally say your key word). That will activate the response, and you’ll be flooded with the driving energy of success-inducing power. Once you feel yourself completely filled with that energy, s-l-o-w-l-y unclench your right fist and decide to take’and follow through with’each step of your action plan in a focused, determined manner.

Each day do all you can and all you know you must. Do one specific step and/or task at a time, and stay with it until it’s fully completed; then go on to the next.

Whenever you want to or feel you need to, reignite your personal power anchor to keep yourself flooded with the driving, forceful sensation. Make sure you sustain that internal feeling as the fuel that drives all of your action-plan efforts.

Aspect E: Purposefully apply each of your success-inducing attributes as needed. Use the framework whenever you need it to make the accomplishment of each step of your plan an individual success. Aspect F: Reinforce yourself and your ability. When you’ve completed each step of your plan, give yourself a chance to feel the self-respect, self-esteem and sense of ability. Let yourself know you did it, you can do it’and you will continue to do it.

Aspect G: Maintain an invincible positive focus. Be sure you sustain an ‘I can, I will, I do’and I will continue to!’ attitude as you accomplish every single step of your plan.

Aspect H: Learn and grow as you strive forward. You’ll realize new things,make new associations and develop new understanding as you become ever bigger in your life. Refine your approach when indicated, and apply the new knowledge you glean along the way to making who you are and what you do ever stronger.

Aspect I: Revel in, rejoice in and celebrate your triumphs no matter how big or small. Be sure you enjoy the accomplishment of each step along the way.

The Choice Is Yours; the Time Is Now!

Life is too short to be small. Go ahead and use what you’ve been cultivating in the gym all these years to make yourself big in life. You’ve already developed the success-inducing attributes and the drive you need to triumph. And you already know how to exert a level of sustained mental and physical effort to produce a certain result.

So take your bigness and make your life as developed as your body. And if you’re thinking that directing your energy toward becoming big in your whole life will detract from your bodybuilding, let me tell you something loud and clear: Becoming more successful and accomplished empowers the whole of you’always. And it will naturally move you to increase and improve in areas where you already excel. So go ahead’make your decision, make your plan, get into the power state and make it happen for you!

Editor’s note: Self-help author, seminar leader and personal-change specialist Peter C. Siegel is America’s foremost sports and peak-performance hypnotherapist. You can review his acclaimed self-help, personal-success development, mega-confidence-building programs at www.incrediblechange.com, or you can call the PowerMind order desk at (310) 280-3269. The programs come with Siegel’s unique, results-guaranteed assurance. IM